The recording and reading of data in tracks on magnetic storage media requires precise positioning of magnetic read/write heads. The read/write heads must be quickly moved to, and maintained centered over, particular data tracks as recording and reading of data takes place. The magnetic heads can record and read data as relative movement occurs between the heads and the magnetic storage media in a transducing direction. The heads are moved from track to track across the width of the tracks in a translating direction, which is perpendicular to the transducing direction.
For example, a recordable disk typically contains concentric data tracks and is rotated beneath a magnetic head. The direction of rotation defines the transducing direction. Radial movement from track to track defines the translating direction. A magnetic tape typically contains data tracks that extend along the length of the tape, parallel to the tape edges, in the transducing direction. In magnetic tape helical scan systems, however, the tape is moved beneath heads that are moved at an angle across the width of the tape, the diagonal direction defining the transducing direction.
Storage devices that read and record data on magnetic media typically use servo control systems to properly position the data heads in the translating direction. The servo control systems derive a position signal from a servo magnetic head that reads servo control information recorded in servo tracks on the storage media. Sometimes, the servo control information comprises two parallel but dissimilar patterns flanking data tracks.
FIG. 1 illustrates a typical multitrack tape head 100 having a multitude of read elements 102 and one or more servo sensors 104, where the servo sensors 104 are spaced such as to read two servo format bands on tape media during tape drive operation for the purposes of timing based servo.
Because most tape drives in service are not capable of writing servo information on magnetic tape media, such tapes are sold with servo format patterns already created on the tape surface. Manufacturers of tapes use a high speed formatting head to write servo information on the tapes. However, if part of that head fails, the servo information may not be written correctly and may even be missing. The result is that the tape may be only partially usable or even completely useless to the end consumer. Thus, it is often necessary to verify that a servo format pattern has been properly written on the tape because, as mentioned above, most tape drives in service today do not have the capability to write or repair servo track data.
One solution is to specifically design, develop, and fabricate a thin film head specifically tailored to the servo format verification process as described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,462,904 entitled “Timing Based Servo for Magnetic Tape Systems” and which is herein incorporated by reference. However, this requires thin film development and fabrication effort specific to this purpose, which can be quite costly due to wafer design and fabrication costs (e.g., the need to create multiple masks, perform photolithography, etc.) in order to form a head that, unlike standard heads which read only a portion of the tape, e.g., ¼ or ⅛ of the tape width, can read all of the servo tracks simultaneously. Because servo format verification heads are not needed in bulk, the cost per unit produced would be prohibitive.
Another solution for servo verification is to utilize a standard tape head's servo sensors to verify the servo format patterns. However, standard tape heads typically have only one or two servo sensors, so this solution is only capable of monitoring two bands of the servo format at a time, when in fact, a greater number, such as five, bands of servo format are written during the tape manufacturing process. Thus, either several read heads must be simultaneously employed, or the read head must be shifted back and forth across the width of the tape to sequentially read the various servo tracks.
Therefore it would be useful to construct low cost servo format read heads with the capability of reading all the servo format bands, such as five, at the same time.